Download 6364_The Dark Side of the New Deal

How Japanese Internment Camps
marred the images of FDR and
the New Deal
 1920s
–
• “The Roaring Twenties”
• A time of increasing prosperity for most
Americans.
• American economic output / production was at
an all-time high.
• However, the good times did not last indefinitely.
 1930s –
• The world sunk into an economic downturn.
• This was furthered by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Act of 1930.
 Created protectionism for American goods in the U.S.
 20,000 imported goods were subject to the tariff.
 Backlash formed, as other nations put up tariffs
against American goods in protest.
 International commerce all but shut down.
 Signed into law by Pres. Herbert Hoover.
 Thus began the Great Depression.
 Hoover
was immediately voted out of
office in favor of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.
o This New York Democrat
ran on balancing the
budget and defeating the
economic depression.
o Inaugurated in March of
1933.
 Roosevelt
was vested with the
responsibility of defeating the Great
Depression.


Unemployment was
in the double digits.
Roosevelt created the
New Deal and spent
unheard of amounts
of taxpayer money
trying to stimulate
the economy.
 Roosevelt
created agencies like the
Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and
the Work Projects Administration (WPA)
in order to combat the rising
unemployment rate and the sinking
economy.
 Because
of the global economic
depression, some countries began to
exhibit disturbing behaviors.
 Germany –
• The Germans were still suffering the economic
consequences of World War I.
• Combined with the global depression, Germans
were severely hurting.
• Enter Adolf Hitler
 Germany’s
Adolf Hitler started World War
II when he ordered German forces into
Poland.
 The world descended further into chaos.
 Soon, Europe was enveloped in war.
 But the conflict and chaos was not
confined to European soil.
 Japan, in 1937, began the invasion of
China.
 The Tripartite
Pact –
• Signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1940.
 Japan, led
by Hirohito (aka Emperor
Showa) and Prime Minister Tojo, decided
to bomb the U.S. port of Pearl Harbor in
Hawai’i on December 7th, 1941.
TOJO
Hirohito
USS West Virginia
 On
Dec. 7th, 1941, Japanese forces
bombed Pearl Harbor.
• 4 U.S. battleships and 2 U.S. destroyers sunk
• 188 U.S. aircraft destroyed
• 2,345 military personnel and 57 civilians were
killed
 FDR
responded to the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor by issuing Executive Order
9066.
• This ordered the internment of Americans of
Japanese descent into concentration camps
throughout the United States.
 Most camps were in the American West and Southwest.
 FDR
stoked the fears of Americans by
suggesting the Americans of Japanese
descent might actually be spies.
oTIME Magazine: How to Tell Your
Friends from the Japs
 This
order by FDR is the dark side of the
New Deal. It was fueled by wartime hysteria
and fears.
 Signed February 19th, 1942 –
• Japanese-Americans’ “Day of Infamy.”
 Irony –
• U.S. leaders put Americans of Japanese descent into
these concentration camps.
• Later, the U.S. denounced the Jewish internment
camps by Nazi Germans.
• Double standard?

"I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the
Military Commanders whom he may from time to time
designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems
such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas
in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate
Military Commander may determine, from which any or all
persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right
of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to
whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate
Military Commander may determine, from which any or all
persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right
of any person to enter, remaining, or leave shall be subject to
whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate
Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The
Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents
of any such area who are excluded there from, such
transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as
may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or
the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements
are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order."
 -Franklin Delano Roosevelt
 The
Japanese Internment camps
represent an enormous stain on
American history.
 This period of history directly mars the
work of FDR and the New Deal.
 Thousands of American of Japanese
decent were forced to enter these camps.
 The pure irrationality and racism is
without question a horrid moment in our
history.
 Why
is this history largely dismissed as
minor?
 What are the consequences of the
Executive Order 9066?
 What lessons should we draw from this
stain on American history?